The Gravity of Fear

by maximusaurus

It’s difficult to adequately describe the sensation of being constantly afraid. Of spending every second of every day feeling as though the world around you is about to fall apart.

It’s like being a kilometer underwater, where the pressure is 104kg per square centimeter.

It’s like wearing a backpack full of lead ingots everywhere you go.

It’s like having all your nerves on the outside of your skin, completely exposed.

Everything hurts. The sun, because it brings to mind cancer. Being around people, because you never know when they might cough or sneeze, or if they’re contagious. Being alone, because what if you have a heart attack and nobody is there to save you? Touching things, because of the paralyzing fear of contamination. Breathing, because of fear of what germs or chemicals are floating in the air.

The simplest of tasks becomes an exhausting ordeal; going for a walk at night feels like a brush with death, as at any moment I half expect a bat to shit on me and give me some deadly incurable disease.

A mere two hour shift at work can leave me almost non-functional for the rest of the day, because fighting against the weight of the world is just so tiring. Just existing is hard work.

A constant sense of impending doom hangs overhead, as if tomorrow the world will be wiped out by an asteroid.

The fear may fluctuate, and there are times where it retreats into the background, but it never completely goes away. Ever. Not for a single second. I just have to manage it, like a chronic incurable disease.

Over time, I’ve gotten better at handling it, but if there is a true cure, I have yet to discover it. But I’ll keep searching, and fighting this fear with every fiber of my being, because I dream of a day when I will be free.

Often. Sometimes it feels like that’s all there is in life, but then, other days things feel different. It seems to pull and release like the tides but in the end it’s all part of the experience I suppose.